


New Clothes

by Silencing



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Trans Male Character, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 00:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silencing/pseuds/Silencing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick is in desperate need of a new binder, but Alfred and Bruce don’t even know he wears one, and Dick’s afraid that if they find out about this hidden part of him they’ll see him as a completely different person.  Trans* Dick, because I’ve had a lot of feels and thoughts about him for a while.</p>
<p>Also, consider this a weird amalgam of timelines - Dick is about 14 here but hasn’t lived at the manor very long.  Maybe a year.  I’m bad with ages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Clothes

In the afternoon, when he got home from school and before his guardian returned from work, Dick Grayson had a narrow window of time when he was virtually alone in the manor. Alfred had grown to recognize Dick’s patterns and left him in solitude for an hour or so, waiting for the boy to emerge on his own before offering homework help or sitting down in the study to listen to him chatter about his day. Dick would come in through the front door and grab the tray of snacks left discreetly for him on the table by the stairs, and then he’d take to the training room or his bedroom to soak in a little peace and quiet and recover from the hectic bustle of his day. 

 

Today, he was grateful for the privacy for another reason. Bruce and Alfred didn’t pry much, and when Dick was in his room with the door closed he was more or less guaranteed to be left alone, but right now he wanted to be sure. After taking a moment to toss his bookbag down by his desk and cram half a granola bar into his mouth, he dropped down cross-legged in the middle of his bed and set to work on this afternoon’s project.

Dick stripped his sweaty shirt off and chucked it neatly into his laundry bin, then very carefully peeled open the velcro on the tight band of elastic and cotton wrapped around his chest. He huffed a little sigh of relief when the binder came off and rubbed at a patch of reddened skin just under his ribs, wincing at how tender it was. That only strengthened his resolve to do what needed to be done, regardless of how anxious he was about it.

The binder was too small for him now, not so tight that it was dangerous to wear, but tight enough to make it uncomfortable. Worse, the velcro had almost worn away, threadbare in some places, made worse by the strain he put on the material on a daily basis. He’d been bulking up lately thanks to Robin’s training routines, and sprouting like a weed as well. Alfred had already made alterations to his uniform for a better fit. It stood to reason that he’d need to upgrade his binders as well, but he’d been trying not to think about that.

Not that he really had much to worry about from Bruce and Alfred. Alfie, at least, probably wouldn’t bat an eyelash. And Bruce probably wouldn’t, either - but Dick had seen enough to know not to trust people 100%, not with this. 

Dick had been raised to be proud of himself, to know he was loved and cherished by everyone in his small, tight-knit circus family, and for a little while he hadn’t even realized that outsiders might see him differently. No one at home ever called him the wrong name, or asked him questions that made him uncomfortable. He was the impish little prince of the big top, and that was that.

For a couple of years, outsiders didn’t give him a second look, either. But Dick hit puberty hard and early, and everything seemed to change at once - not just his body, but the way people looked at him. He learned pretty fast how outsiders felt about boys like him, and it hurt the way few other things had in his young life.

The binder sitting in front of him was the last one his parents had gotten for him. Their support had been all he needed to remember how to feel proud of himself again, and he hadn’t looked back since. Looking at it now, with the loss still so fresh in his mind, made Dick’s heart ache.

Now it was time to see if his surrogate family would be as supportive to him as the one he was born to. Dick was pretty sure Alfred and Bruce knew already - not much got past the two of them. Still, the thought of saying it out loud terrified him.

Dick rubbed his thumb over the patchy velcro once more and then wrapped the binder around his ribs again, willing his heart not to pound quite so hard. He fished a new t-shirt out of his dresser and pulled it on, and then a hoodie for good measure, thinking of the extra layers like armor. Bruce would probably be on his way home by now, taking off early like he did almost every day, and Dick wanted to talk to Alfred first before he got back. Maybe then Alfred would intercede on his behalf.

He shuffled out of his room and took the stairs slowly, one-by-one instead of in long bounds like he usually did. Alfred was waiting for him in the kitchen, as usual, wearing an apron and dicing carrots into impossibly small pieces. 

“Hey, Alfred?” Dick leaned against the kitchen island, drawing meaningless patterns on the marble countertop with his finger. ”Can I talk to you about something?”

Alfred wiped his hands clean on the front of the apron and turned to face the boy, smiling gently. ”Of course, Richard. What’s troubling you?”

Dick pulled a face at the remark. ”How do you know something’s bothering me? What if I just wanted to ask if we got more boxes of Lucky Charms?”

“You’re an open book. It’s lucky you wear a mask out in the evenings, my boy.”

Dick smiled wryly at that, feeling a little of his tension melt away at Alfred’s soothing tone. ”Yeah, well - secret identities and all that. And, uh. Speaking of secrets. I… I need your help with something.” He fussed with a bit of lint that’d been stuck to the countertop for a moment, feeling Alfred’s expectant gaze on him, then sucked in a deep breath and pushed on before he could chicken out. ”I need a new binder. For… you know. My chest. My old one’s worn out and it rubs weirdly and the velcro’s coming off and - and this is probably really weird, isn’t it?”

He forced himself to look up at Alfred, expecting to see puzzlement at least - at worst, disgust. But Alfred looked as calm and composed as ever, even smiling a little bit like he found Dick’s nervousness endearing.

“I thought you might. I’m surprised your old one lasted this long,” he said, and Dick’s jaw dropped. That was the last thing he’d expected.

“You… you knew?”

“I did. And so does master Bruce, before you ask.”

Dick wrinkled his nose, feeling simultaneously relieved and confused. ”Why didn’t you guys say anything?”

Alfred came around the island to stand beside him, resting a comforting hand on his narrow shoulder. ”Richard, there are many things about you that are far more important than the shape of the body you were born with. Indeed, I don’t think asking you about it has ever crossed your guardian’s mind - and I thought it best to let you come to us, first.”

Dick turned around and wrapped his arms tight around Alfred’s middle, covering up his sudden wash of emotion in a hug. His relief and gratitude took his words away for a moment - a rare thing for him. 

Alfred returned the hug and squeezed Dick’s shoulder gently. ”I have something for you, and I think you’ll find it an improvement on what you’ve been wearing.”

Dick’s heart jumped and he looked up at Alfred with an enormous grin. ”Oh man, are you serious? I thought I was gonna have to just borrow the family credit card!”

Alfred made a noise of mock indignation. ”Young master, if I can patch up holes in a Batsuit, I’m fairly certain I can stitch together something as simple as a few new undergarments for you.”

A few was an understatement - when Alfred opened up the wardrobe in his workroom, nearly half of the garments inside had been made for Dick, and hanging in the back behind a hidden panel were two beautiful red tunics with the binding already sewn into them. Dick vaguely heard Alfred going on about the different designs and prototypes, but he was too busy resisting the urge to do cartwheels around the room to pay that much attention. 

At some point, midway through rifling through the wardrobe, he heard Alfred mention something about talking to Bruce later. Dick just nodded, feeling stupid with relief and happiness - he wasn’t afraid, anymore.


End file.
